Language facts

1) Do you know how many languages are spoken in the world, what language is the most widely spoken, what language is the least widely spoken, what language is the most difficult to learn, etc.? Read the facts below and find out.

· There are thirteen languages spoken by more than 100 million people. They are: Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Malay-Indonesian, French, Japanese, German, and Urdu.

· There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers. The most widely spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese. There are 885,000,000 people in China that speak that language.

· There are over 583 different languages and dialects spoken in Indonesia alone, including English and Dutch. More than 2,000 languages are spoken in the entire continent of Africa.

· The most difficult language to speak is Basque. It is not related to any language in the world. It is spoken in north-western Spain and south-western France.

· The Berbers of Northern Africa have no written form of their language.

· Somalia is the only country in the world where every citizen speaks one language, Somali.

· The only country where Latin is the official language is Vatican City.

· The Cambodian alphabet is the world's largest alphabet, with 74 letters.

· The world's shortest alphabet, used in the Solomon Islands, has only 11.

· English, the second most spoken language in the world, has more words than any other language. But English speakers generally use only about 1% of the language. About one third of the more than one million English words are technical terms.

· The language of Taki, spoken in parts of French Guinea, consists of only 340 words.

· Today, 58 countries in the world and the United Nations include English as an official language, followed by French with 32 countries and the United Nations, and Arabic at 25 countries and the United Nations.

· The country Nigeria itself has more than 250 different languages, making the production of newspapers and television shows a challenge. Major languages include, French, Arabic, Hausa, Djerma, and Songhai.

· Two areas of the world have the largest number of languages (some 300 to 400 total) that are currently becoming extinct: Australia and North America (Aboriginals and Native American languages).

· Votic, a Finno-Ugric tongue of the Uralic language family in the Kingisepp district on the Leningrad region of Russia, has less than a hundred remaining speakers.

· Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language. It uses 4 different tones to convey different meanings: flat, rising, falling then rising, or falling.

· The language with the largest number of consonantal sounds was that of the Ubykns in the Caucasus, with 82. The last fully competent speaker, Tevtik Esenc, died in Istanbul in October 1992.

· The language with the most vowels is Sedang, a central Vietnamese language, with 55 distinguishable vowel sounds.

Which facts surprised you most? Which facts shocked you? Why?

2) Could you continue the list of language facts? Share your suggestions with the class.

LISTENING 1. Languages in Conflict: Irish and English

1. In the small country of Ireland, two languages are used by the people: Irish, which is the native language, and English, which is the language that was brought to Ireland by the invading armies of England in the twelfth century.

· What do you know about Ireland? Its size, location, population?

· Do you know anything about the present day status of English and Irish in Ireland?

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16